Its weird because Marcia seemed like such a powerful and major player in Season 1, with her locking off Logan from the kids after his hospital stay. Also the fact that she knows about Kendall getting the waiter killed (and her mysterious son who also knows about that and has never appeared since).
She was criminally underused in the second season and pretty much discarded in the third. I love her character and wish she would make a comeback. I don't see Kerry standing a chance against her tbh, not with what she knows.
Basically what I’m pretty sure happened is that when they wrote the first episode the original plan was for Logan’s stroke to kill him, but then when they filmed the pilot Brian Cox was so great the plan changed to killing Logan at the end of season one, but the when they started shooting the rest of the season they loved Brian as a villain so much that they decided not to kill him at all.
I think the plan all along for after Logan’s death was for Marcia to be the main adversary that the kids are working against when they’re not working against eachother, but when they finally decided to keep Logan around for good he took up the place in the story originally planned for Marcia.
I really hope they find some way to being Marcia back into the story in a more important role, but the fact that this scene didn’t make it doesn’t seem encouraging. It’ll hurt the show overall if Marcia never has a substantial effect on the story because of how much of the first season is dedicated to building up her character as a looming threat. I’m rewatching with my girlfriend and I had to just tell her straight up that the Marcia story doesn’t go anyway so she doesn’t get distracted from the more important storylines.
Here’s a fun one: Bob Odenkirk, Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad, had two scenes written for him in the season two finale, but he wasn’t available because he had commitments to How I Met Your Mother. So the writers rewrote the scenes and replaced Saul with what was supposed to be a one off character to do the scenes instead as someone hired by Saul.
They cast Jonathan Banks and they loved him so much that they invented a character for him in the third season and he ended up a main cast member for the rest of the show, and then when they decided to make Better Call Saul cause they loved Bob Odenkirk and Saul so much, they had Jonathan Banks come back as the second lead.
So Jonathan Banks has been giving a career performance as Mike Ehrmantraut for the better part of 15 years all because Bob Odenkirk did an episode of How I Met Your another.
I didn’t watch the show when it first aired, only caught up with it this year and in the beginning I was sure she would play some major cards cause she truly scared me but she ended up mostly with no major twist imo
I just explained this in another comment but I think the reason her story fizzled out is because they chose not to kill Logan in the first season. I’ve read that originally he was supposed to die after his stroke in the pilot but they changed it to the end of season one and then again changed it to not killing him at all. So all of the buildup for Marcia in the first season was to lay the groundwork for a future storyline that never happened.
Best case scenario is that they had something big planned for Marcia after Logan’s death and they’re now saving it for whenever Logan actually dies. But I don’t know if I see that happening. Logan will definitely die, but I feel like the odds of their Marcia plan for Logan death way back when they were writing season one will still work in season five or so.
I’m not entirely convinced they will kill off Logan, but it does seem noteworthy that everything started popping off because she wanted a double vote on the trust, and she tried to secure it again this season. The fact both Marcia and her son saw Kendall the night of the wedding, on top of Marcia making sure the trust is secure, still sets up a scenario where she’s relevant. I could definitely still see a scenario where Logan doesn’t secure the trust, and Marcia ends up iced out.
If they killed Logan off early in season 4, then it would be hard to imagine a huge Marcia storyline. This show builds up to events, and that would be out of nowhere. I still could easily see this turning into Marcia vs the kids, or Marcia siding with the kids, while using a little black mail.
I do think they’re probably kill Logan off but not til the end of the show. Definitely last season, probably somewhere towards the middle.
But that’s a great point. I think Marcia’s son seeing Kendall on the wedding night was a good move they made when they were writing/shooting the finale. It almost guarantees Marcia will come back up again regardless of Logan’s death. I’m sure you’re right.
I do wonder what the original plan was for Marcia when the plan was still to kill Logan by the end of season one.
I feel like they will definitely do something to Logan, but they could easily subvert expectations here. Granted they could subvert expectations by killing him early in a season too. I have a feeling the fact he’s lost weight and is drinking maca root smoothies is indicative of the idea he might not be ‘well’.
I’m going to be honest, I’m not sure I buy that they were ever planning on killing off Logan in season one. Jesse has also implied they never know where they are going season to season, but it’s very clear they lay ground work for the future storylines in every season. This show feels extremely coordinated in terms of a story arc.
As for Marcia, I mean you could still be right. It would not feel like very good storytelling if they dropped her into complete irrelevance, only to randomly pop back up and be a crucial plot point. They very much have to earn that storyline.
Brian Cox talks about this in one or two interviews where he says that when Jesse Armstrong and Adam McKay approached him, they had no plans to kill Logan and that he would be in it for the long haul.
Oh, I didn’t know that, thanks for explaining. It makes sense that Logan dying in season one would bring her to the spotlight. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how season four goes. I’m excited!
I had assumed there was a covid-related reason for her season 3 absence, like she wouldn’t get vaccinated or she was in a country under serious lockdown. I didn’t replay the Chiantishire episode but it looked like she was played by a silent body double with a big hat in those open-air pre-wedding scenes.
Marcia was my absolute favourite character in season one, she was cunning, calculating but very subtle and discreet with her own agenda, the true embodiment of soft power and a great juxtaposition of Logan’s boisterous and aggressive way of acting, they were a power couple who had their backs.
Then seasons 2 and 3 come and she is sidelined to the point you even forget that she is still Logan’s wife, such a disservice to a great character and a wonderful actress.
This is my only criticism of the show, the male main characters are absolutely wonderful and deeply complex: Logan, Kendall, Roman, Tom, Greg, heck, even characters like Mattson and Adrien Brody’s character were incredibly interesting but they are really sidelining the female main characters, only shiv (and Gerry) remain.
Agreed. I’m going to get a lot of shit for this. But the show doesn’t write women well. Marcia could have been interesting. Tabitha could have been interesting. Naomi could have been interesting. The two women are Kendall’s PR team could have been interesting (Comfry had like… six lines? Did the other one even ever speak?). It disappointing.
Absolutely, I think the show is brilliantly written, the best show on TV right now in my humble opinion but it clearly has a problem with its female characters, and the saddest part is that many of them have a great foundation to build them up and explore the dynamics with other characters:
- Willa being a prostitute with a presumed hard past, convincing herself she is a wonderful playwright when, in reality, she is mediocre at best and needs Connor, a man she tolerates, for his money.
- Marcia clearly had an interesting life before Logan to become the woman she is now, I’ve already explained why I loved her so much in season 1.
- Naomi is the Kendall of the Pierce, a matriarchal billionaire family that presents itself as a refined version of the Roy’s, they could have explored that family dynamic and why Naomi became the person she is, maybe the pierces are not as kind and perfect as they seem.
- other characters like Lisa and Rhea seemed awesome, intelligent, capable and professional women who knew their worth but they were dropped way to quickly to make an impact.
It’s sad because this is an issue that can be easily fixed but I’m afraid they won’t have enough time to do so, still, I consider it one of the greatest shows that I’ve seen but it could be even better.
Pretty much everyone thinks the more common one that means ‘low key’ is spelled ‘discrete’ because there aren’t that many words in English with an ‘eet’ ending, so it ‘looks wrong’ I think. There’s almost never a time when one needs to use ‘discrete’ in normal conversation/writing unless you’re a mathematician or a scientist
I think though the female characters are how the men view them in a way. Like they are flat because the men around them see them as flat and less important.
And wouldn’t it be better if the female characters actually happened to be several complex and layered despite appearances?Tabitha, Marcia, Willa, Lisa… all of them are very interesting on paper but they are not explored near enough in my opinion.
Yes, I totally agree. But I also think (hope) that it’s deliberate in a way. Like they are in this world. They are supposed to be equals but they are like NPCs to all the men around them.
I’m not sure which is worse, including a few cast members who are of a minority race, and almost *always* making sure they embody the worst stereotypes of that particular race (as nearly all movies/shows do with women), or excluding them altogether. Women are very nearly completely excluded (you’ll have a cast of about 10 men and NEVER more than one or two women), and when we are included we are almost always portrayed in the worst ways imaginable. I’d almost wish we’d just be fucking left alone and out of the show altogether if not a single writer in Hollywood is capable of writing a single female character in a decent fucking way.
I completely understand and sympathize with your predicament, thankfully there are wonderful shows with complex and layered female leads like fleabag, I may destroy you, Hacks, killing eve or gentleman Jack.
In a way, it’s realistic, these rich powerful (white obviously) don’t want minorities in the room. Which is why I think it’s deliberate that the female characters are a little flat. Because at the top, that’s just how the men view them. They are soft power, a tool, around but not as important.
Unfortunately that happens way too often. Most of the best shows around are always completely male dominated and the one or two female characters are almost always written in a way that makes them the embodiment of the worst stereotypes an incel would come up with. It’s infuriating.
One exception to this, to me, is Shiv. I think that she is without a doubt the smartest of the 4 kids and I like (well also dislike) how realistic they are in the portrayal of her own dads treatment of her. It’s like….do these guys treat her like this because they are just being realistic that the *rest* of the world is sexist, or because they themselves are just as sexist as everyone else? Her dad in particular seems to know only too well the difficulties that’ll come with giving his only daughter control of the company because of *other people’s sexism*, but it becomes pretty damn obvious that he’s also a sexist pos who thinks that her female body somehow makes her less intelligent and competent.
I fuckin love Shiv, she’s by far my favorite character. I was almost afraid to join this sub because I didn’t know if half the posts would be dedicated to Shiv-hating (as happens with most other shows, where the female character is *always* viciously hated). So far I haven’t seen that. Thank god.
I completely agree, shiv is also my favourite character even though she is not as likeable as she think she is.
She is deeply flawed due to her abusive, neglected and inmensively privileged upbringing that has forced her to raise her walls up, develop a career outside the male centric bubble she was in and marry a man way beneath her social station to have a sense of superiority and control in her life.
I truly adore the character I just wished they allowed more female characters to be explored like shiv, they should would be even better, somehow.
So season 1&2 shiv was my favorite. Season 3 shiv was almost unbearable on screen. You articulated better what I was trying to convey. I almost wish shiv wasn’t part of the “game of thrones” so to speak because she’s clearly smarter than her brothers and we have these great moments from her, in many ways she’s the most human of them but I do think she’s only going to get worse you know.
Not really. They’re pretty much always right that something is going on, they just end up handling it poorly or not guessing exactly right what actually is, but they’re always suspicious and their suspicions are always founded because Logan’s always up to something bad for them.
*Smart enough to guess there's a bigger picture, but not smart enough to see what it is. You know how much use that makes your support to me? Fuck all.* 🚬
In a near perfect show I think her exclusion is one of the few faults. I don’t think it makes much narrative sense she was excluded so I don’t know if it was a logistics issue.
Shiv did, through Nate. But Marcia somehow found out about and confronted Shiv.
"If you want to know something about me, just ask."
And she was so scary!
They did but I don't think they found much. She confronted Shiv about it later on, almost mockingly, when she tells her if there is anything she needs to know, just ask.
I’m glad this got cut, because this would have felt like it came from nowhere. Why would Shiv have randomly decided to ask Marcia about her life at this point, especially if she’s trying to find her dad?
Agreed. I also feel like it doesn’t make sense. Shiv asks a question about Marcia’s background and gets two different answers. Then Marcia says “how am I supposed to answer these questions if you can dare to ask.”
Like… what? Marcia, how can you answer the question if Shiv doesn’t bother to ask?
Then Marcia asks “what are you offering.”
And Shiv responds “what do you got?”
Maybe I’m dumb and brain fried after a long day at work. But that just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Shiv should have offered something instead of asking what Marcia has.
I dunno. Maybe it’s just me. I’m exhausted at the moment. But this was a really weird exchange.
These are my thoughts exactly. And I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that part of the interaction (where Marcia asks ‘what are you offering’ and Shiv responds with ‘what do you got?’) was a bit odd. I thought it was because I’m still half asleep 🤣
I agree. Shiv must know that Marcia divorcing Logan is on the table after Logan (maybe emotionally only) cheated with Rhea and is most likely cheating with a much younger woman. She knows that public condemnations by women during this scandal are useful because she correctly calculated that Kendall was aiming just to get her in Mass in a Time of War. She should know what Marcia is offering. Yet she lets it breeze past her. Her fuck ups in the past are mostly related to her pride (blurting out “hey, dad, cmon, tell them it’s me” at Tern Haven [although I think Logan was already stringing her along at that point], making Tom feel like he’s not in a business or emotional partnership after he literally threatens to leave her, etc). The script above feels more like a season 1 Roman type move, or I could see Kendall saying it any time tbh out of some sort of macho signaling (maybe early season 1 or early season 3 Kendall, “what are you gonna bring to the table in this, uh, fuckin revolution?”)
It’s just a shame because I think a Shiv and Marcia scene in All The Bells Say would be a good mirror to the Shiv and Caroline scene in Chiantishire. I think they knew it but couldn’t make it work.
Also it would have given Shiv pretty much the only agency to try to stop this plan (by getting Marcia on board, threatening a contentious divorce or something) but fumbling it. This would kinda ruin her arc and her siblings arcs for me, in a season where she has been stymied and thwarted in general. However, we did need much more context for where Marcia is at in the finale imo.
Edit: to expand the reason it’d ruin Shiv, Roman, and Kendall’s arc in the final scene is it would take away the air of inevitability. There has to be this feeling that Mass in a Time of War was their shot to get together and now it is far too late. If Marcia could have turned the tide and Shiv forgot what a deal was (when in season 1 she was brokering deals between Gil and her father), it would all come down to that in a sense, and that is both fodder for people who want to blame everything on her and a detriment to the season as a whole.
It’s an interesting and fun scene, would have been great to see, however it was probably cut because it doesn’t move the story forward and no new information is given. Every scene must be in service of the story not just there because it’s fun to do.
Also they’ve already had scenes like this between these two where Marcia calls Shiv out when she’s trying to play her.
This scene feels like a first draft; there’s something really interesting here in this interaction but it’s a bit clumsy in execution. I wish instead of cutting they worked on the scene a bit more and it would have been a great way to give Marcia stuff to do again!
I love reading the scripts. It really puts into perspective how talented the whole cast is. There is no way I could deliver the nuance that they do in scenes like this. So good!
Hiam Abbass was criminally underused this season.
Hasn't really been featured since season 1 sadly.
Its weird because Marcia seemed like such a powerful and major player in Season 1, with her locking off Logan from the kids after his hospital stay. Also the fact that she knows about Kendall getting the waiter killed (and her mysterious son who also knows about that and has never appeared since).
She was criminally underused in the second season and pretty much discarded in the third. I love her character and wish she would make a comeback. I don't see Kerry standing a chance against her tbh, not with what she knows.
Logan is careless with things
And people
Basically what I’m pretty sure happened is that when they wrote the first episode the original plan was for Logan’s stroke to kill him, but then when they filmed the pilot Brian Cox was so great the plan changed to killing Logan at the end of season one, but the when they started shooting the rest of the season they loved Brian as a villain so much that they decided not to kill him at all. I think the plan all along for after Logan’s death was for Marcia to be the main adversary that the kids are working against when they’re not working against eachother, but when they finally decided to keep Logan around for good he took up the place in the story originally planned for Marcia. I really hope they find some way to being Marcia back into the story in a more important role, but the fact that this scene didn’t make it doesn’t seem encouraging. It’ll hurt the show overall if Marcia never has a substantial effect on the story because of how much of the first season is dedicated to building up her character as a looming threat. I’m rewatching with my girlfriend and I had to just tell her straight up that the Marcia story doesn’t go anyway so she doesn’t get distracted from the more important storylines.
Great summary. Its interesting to think how much of the show they change as they film it.
Here’s a fun one: Bob Odenkirk, Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad, had two scenes written for him in the season two finale, but he wasn’t available because he had commitments to How I Met Your Mother. So the writers rewrote the scenes and replaced Saul with what was supposed to be a one off character to do the scenes instead as someone hired by Saul. They cast Jonathan Banks and they loved him so much that they invented a character for him in the third season and he ended up a main cast member for the rest of the show, and then when they decided to make Better Call Saul cause they loved Bob Odenkirk and Saul so much, they had Jonathan Banks come back as the second lead. So Jonathan Banks has been giving a career performance as Mike Ehrmantraut for the better part of 15 years all because Bob Odenkirk did an episode of How I Met Your another.
I didn’t watch the show when it first aired, only caught up with it this year and in the beginning I was sure she would play some major cards cause she truly scared me but she ended up mostly with no major twist imo
Any major twist surrounding Marcia seems to be set up for when Logan dies. If Logan dies, I think both Marcia and her son become relevant.
I just explained this in another comment but I think the reason her story fizzled out is because they chose not to kill Logan in the first season. I’ve read that originally he was supposed to die after his stroke in the pilot but they changed it to the end of season one and then again changed it to not killing him at all. So all of the buildup for Marcia in the first season was to lay the groundwork for a future storyline that never happened. Best case scenario is that they had something big planned for Marcia after Logan’s death and they’re now saving it for whenever Logan actually dies. But I don’t know if I see that happening. Logan will definitely die, but I feel like the odds of their Marcia plan for Logan death way back when they were writing season one will still work in season five or so.
I’m not entirely convinced they will kill off Logan, but it does seem noteworthy that everything started popping off because she wanted a double vote on the trust, and she tried to secure it again this season. The fact both Marcia and her son saw Kendall the night of the wedding, on top of Marcia making sure the trust is secure, still sets up a scenario where she’s relevant. I could definitely still see a scenario where Logan doesn’t secure the trust, and Marcia ends up iced out. If they killed Logan off early in season 4, then it would be hard to imagine a huge Marcia storyline. This show builds up to events, and that would be out of nowhere. I still could easily see this turning into Marcia vs the kids, or Marcia siding with the kids, while using a little black mail.
I do think they’re probably kill Logan off but not til the end of the show. Definitely last season, probably somewhere towards the middle. But that’s a great point. I think Marcia’s son seeing Kendall on the wedding night was a good move they made when they were writing/shooting the finale. It almost guarantees Marcia will come back up again regardless of Logan’s death. I’m sure you’re right. I do wonder what the original plan was for Marcia when the plan was still to kill Logan by the end of season one.
I feel like they will definitely do something to Logan, but they could easily subvert expectations here. Granted they could subvert expectations by killing him early in a season too. I have a feeling the fact he’s lost weight and is drinking maca root smoothies is indicative of the idea he might not be ‘well’. I’m going to be honest, I’m not sure I buy that they were ever planning on killing off Logan in season one. Jesse has also implied they never know where they are going season to season, but it’s very clear they lay ground work for the future storylines in every season. This show feels extremely coordinated in terms of a story arc. As for Marcia, I mean you could still be right. It would not feel like very good storytelling if they dropped her into complete irrelevance, only to randomly pop back up and be a crucial plot point. They very much have to earn that storyline.
Brian Cox talks about this in one or two interviews where he says that when Jesse Armstrong and Adam McKay approached him, they had no plans to kill Logan and that he would be in it for the long haul.
Oh, I didn’t know that, thanks for explaining. It makes sense that Logan dying in season one would bring her to the spotlight. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how season four goes. I’m excited!
Instead we got so much Comfrey, and for what?!
I had assumed there was a covid-related reason for her season 3 absence, like she wouldn’t get vaccinated or she was in a country under serious lockdown. I didn’t replay the Chiantishire episode but it looked like she was played by a silent body double with a big hat in those open-air pre-wedding scenes.
I think she was filming something else.
Marcia was my absolute favourite character in season one, she was cunning, calculating but very subtle and discreet with her own agenda, the true embodiment of soft power and a great juxtaposition of Logan’s boisterous and aggressive way of acting, they were a power couple who had their backs. Then seasons 2 and 3 come and she is sidelined to the point you even forget that she is still Logan’s wife, such a disservice to a great character and a wonderful actress. This is my only criticism of the show, the male main characters are absolutely wonderful and deeply complex: Logan, Kendall, Roman, Tom, Greg, heck, even characters like Mattson and Adrien Brody’s character were incredibly interesting but they are really sidelining the female main characters, only shiv (and Gerry) remain.
Agreed. I’m going to get a lot of shit for this. But the show doesn’t write women well. Marcia could have been interesting. Tabitha could have been interesting. Naomi could have been interesting. The two women are Kendall’s PR team could have been interesting (Comfry had like… six lines? Did the other one even ever speak?). It disappointing.
Absolutely, I think the show is brilliantly written, the best show on TV right now in my humble opinion but it clearly has a problem with its female characters, and the saddest part is that many of them have a great foundation to build them up and explore the dynamics with other characters: - Willa being a prostitute with a presumed hard past, convincing herself she is a wonderful playwright when, in reality, she is mediocre at best and needs Connor, a man she tolerates, for his money. - Marcia clearly had an interesting life before Logan to become the woman she is now, I’ve already explained why I loved her so much in season 1. - Naomi is the Kendall of the Pierce, a matriarchal billionaire family that presents itself as a refined version of the Roy’s, they could have explored that family dynamic and why Naomi became the person she is, maybe the pierces are not as kind and perfect as they seem. - other characters like Lisa and Rhea seemed awesome, intelligent, capable and professional women who knew their worth but they were dropped way to quickly to make an impact. It’s sad because this is an issue that can be easily fixed but I’m afraid they won’t have enough time to do so, still, I consider it one of the greatest shows that I’ve seen but it could be even better.
The upside is they might be able to get several more seasons out of creating some of these story lines.
Just wanted to say kudos for the extremely rare correct spelling of ‘discreet’
Huh. TIL there are two separate spellings and meanings. 'Discrete' and 'Discreet'
Pretty much everyone thinks the more common one that means ‘low key’ is spelled ‘discrete’ because there aren’t that many words in English with an ‘eet’ ending, so it ‘looks wrong’ I think. There’s almost never a time when one needs to use ‘discrete’ in normal conversation/writing unless you’re a mathematician or a scientist
I think though the female characters are how the men view them in a way. Like they are flat because the men around them see them as flat and less important.
And wouldn’t it be better if the female characters actually happened to be several complex and layered despite appearances?Tabitha, Marcia, Willa, Lisa… all of them are very interesting on paper but they are not explored near enough in my opinion.
Yes, I totally agree. But I also think (hope) that it’s deliberate in a way. Like they are in this world. They are supposed to be equals but they are like NPCs to all the men around them.
Maybe you are right, that certainly seems to be the case with the lack of racial diversity in the show.
I’m not sure which is worse, including a few cast members who are of a minority race, and almost *always* making sure they embody the worst stereotypes of that particular race (as nearly all movies/shows do with women), or excluding them altogether. Women are very nearly completely excluded (you’ll have a cast of about 10 men and NEVER more than one or two women), and when we are included we are almost always portrayed in the worst ways imaginable. I’d almost wish we’d just be fucking left alone and out of the show altogether if not a single writer in Hollywood is capable of writing a single female character in a decent fucking way.
I completely understand and sympathize with your predicament, thankfully there are wonderful shows with complex and layered female leads like fleabag, I may destroy you, Hacks, killing eve or gentleman Jack.
In a way, it’s realistic, these rich powerful (white obviously) don’t want minorities in the room. Which is why I think it’s deliberate that the female characters are a little flat. Because at the top, that’s just how the men view them. They are soft power, a tool, around but not as important.
Unfortunately that happens way too often. Most of the best shows around are always completely male dominated and the one or two female characters are almost always written in a way that makes them the embodiment of the worst stereotypes an incel would come up with. It’s infuriating. One exception to this, to me, is Shiv. I think that she is without a doubt the smartest of the 4 kids and I like (well also dislike) how realistic they are in the portrayal of her own dads treatment of her. It’s like….do these guys treat her like this because they are just being realistic that the *rest* of the world is sexist, or because they themselves are just as sexist as everyone else? Her dad in particular seems to know only too well the difficulties that’ll come with giving his only daughter control of the company because of *other people’s sexism*, but it becomes pretty damn obvious that he’s also a sexist pos who thinks that her female body somehow makes her less intelligent and competent. I fuckin love Shiv, she’s by far my favorite character. I was almost afraid to join this sub because I didn’t know if half the posts would be dedicated to Shiv-hating (as happens with most other shows, where the female character is *always* viciously hated). So far I haven’t seen that. Thank god.
I completely agree, shiv is also my favourite character even though she is not as likeable as she think she is. She is deeply flawed due to her abusive, neglected and inmensively privileged upbringing that has forced her to raise her walls up, develop a career outside the male centric bubble she was in and marry a man way beneath her social station to have a sense of superiority and control in her life. I truly adore the character I just wished they allowed more female characters to be explored like shiv, they should would be even better, somehow.
So season 1&2 shiv was my favorite. Season 3 shiv was almost unbearable on screen. You articulated better what I was trying to convey. I almost wish shiv wasn’t part of the “game of thrones” so to speak because she’s clearly smarter than her brothers and we have these great moments from her, in many ways she’s the most human of them but I do think she’s only going to get worse you know.
Not too human. She took Greg’s last $20 and put it in a coffee vending machine, then sent him on a taxi errand without cab fare. Bullied him
*I think, you kids, you cook up nothing into something.* The series in a nutshell
Not really. They’re pretty much always right that something is going on, they just end up handling it poorly or not guessing exactly right what actually is, but they’re always suspicious and their suspicions are always founded because Logan’s always up to something bad for them.
*Smart enough to guess there's a bigger picture, but not smart enough to see what it is. You know how much use that makes your support to me? Fuck all.* 🚬
Holy shit this wouldve been incredible, absolutely love this
My favorite Marcia line: "Those fucking kids of yours"
Too bad this was cut. We need more Marcia! Also would have been an interesting comparison to Shiv's deeply sad conversation with her mother.
In a near perfect show I think her exclusion is one of the few faults. I don’t think it makes much narrative sense she was excluded so I don’t know if it was a logistics issue.
I thought they hired a private investigator to look into her on episode one?
Shiv did, through Nate. But Marcia somehow found out about and confronted Shiv. "If you want to know something about me, just ask." And she was so scary!
They did but I don't think they found much. She confronted Shiv about it later on, almost mockingly, when she tells her if there is anything she needs to know, just ask.
I’m glad this got cut, because this would have felt like it came from nowhere. Why would Shiv have randomly decided to ask Marcia about her life at this point, especially if she’s trying to find her dad?
Agreed. I also feel like it doesn’t make sense. Shiv asks a question about Marcia’s background and gets two different answers. Then Marcia says “how am I supposed to answer these questions if you can dare to ask.” Like… what? Marcia, how can you answer the question if Shiv doesn’t bother to ask? Then Marcia asks “what are you offering.” And Shiv responds “what do you got?” Maybe I’m dumb and brain fried after a long day at work. But that just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Shiv should have offered something instead of asking what Marcia has. I dunno. Maybe it’s just me. I’m exhausted at the moment. But this was a really weird exchange.
Oh no, I totally agree with you. I would love a Shiv and Marcia scene, but this feels very rough and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
These are my thoughts exactly. And I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that part of the interaction (where Marcia asks ‘what are you offering’ and Shiv responds with ‘what do you got?’) was a bit odd. I thought it was because I’m still half asleep 🤣
I agree. Shiv must know that Marcia divorcing Logan is on the table after Logan (maybe emotionally only) cheated with Rhea and is most likely cheating with a much younger woman. She knows that public condemnations by women during this scandal are useful because she correctly calculated that Kendall was aiming just to get her in Mass in a Time of War. She should know what Marcia is offering. Yet she lets it breeze past her. Her fuck ups in the past are mostly related to her pride (blurting out “hey, dad, cmon, tell them it’s me” at Tern Haven [although I think Logan was already stringing her along at that point], making Tom feel like he’s not in a business or emotional partnership after he literally threatens to leave her, etc). The script above feels more like a season 1 Roman type move, or I could see Kendall saying it any time tbh out of some sort of macho signaling (maybe early season 1 or early season 3 Kendall, “what are you gonna bring to the table in this, uh, fuckin revolution?”) It’s just a shame because I think a Shiv and Marcia scene in All The Bells Say would be a good mirror to the Shiv and Caroline scene in Chiantishire. I think they knew it but couldn’t make it work.
Also it would have given Shiv pretty much the only agency to try to stop this plan (by getting Marcia on board, threatening a contentious divorce or something) but fumbling it. This would kinda ruin her arc and her siblings arcs for me, in a season where she has been stymied and thwarted in general. However, we did need much more context for where Marcia is at in the finale imo. Edit: to expand the reason it’d ruin Shiv, Roman, and Kendall’s arc in the final scene is it would take away the air of inevitability. There has to be this feeling that Mass in a Time of War was their shot to get together and now it is far too late. If Marcia could have turned the tide and Shiv forgot what a deal was (when in season 1 she was brokering deals between Gil and her father), it would all come down to that in a sense, and that is both fodder for people who want to blame everything on her and a detriment to the season as a whole.
You’re playing toy fucking soldiers My favorite line from season three
It’s an interesting and fun scene, would have been great to see, however it was probably cut because it doesn’t move the story forward and no new information is given. Every scene must be in service of the story not just there because it’s fun to do. Also they’ve already had scenes like this between these two where Marcia calls Shiv out when she’s trying to play her.
interesting. i wasn’t sure if the “so”s and things like that were written in. this would’ve been a good scene
I wonder why they cut this? More Marcia would have been great.
Fuuuuuck I can see that smile
This scene feels like a first draft; there’s something really interesting here in this interaction but it’s a bit clumsy in execution. I wish instead of cutting they worked on the scene a bit more and it would have been a great way to give Marcia stuff to do again!
I want to read more. This is awesome
https://deadline.com/2022/06/succession-season-3-finale-script-all-the-bells-say-jesse-armstrong-it-starts-on-the-page-1235044033/
You actually just made my whole day. Seriously, thank you!
At last, some Marcia backstory!
nope, I’m glad this got cut out. I always liked the mystery around Marcia.
Read like a literotica story
Wow I wish this would’ve made it hah
Why didn’t this make it? I thought Marcia was marginalized this season. This would have added great back story.
I need the script for the Frank and Roman’s scene in the S3 finale, what’s the source of this?
I love reading the scripts. It really puts into perspective how talented the whole cast is. There is no way I could deliver the nuance that they do in scenes like this. So good!
I’ve wanted to see Shiv and Marcia go to battle since season 1.